The steady stream of cynicism that greeted a tweeted photo of arguably the most iconic trophy in club football perched on a plinth in Crawley Town's Broadfield Stadium ahead of Stoke City's visit on Sunday was inevitable. The tone: largely contemptuous. The general gist: sarcastic queries about whether the club "had managed to buy the FA Cup as well as everything else". Miaow, saucers of milk all round.

Everyone loves to root for a plucky underdog, but despite the League Two title contenders' status as the lowest ranked club left in this season's competition, Crawley Town have singularly failed to endear themselves to many neutrals through what is widely perceived to be a mixture of arrogance and lack of class. Well, arrogance, lack of class and the seething envy of rival fans of comparatively potless clubs. Despite seeing off supposedly superior Football League outfits Swindon, Derby and Torquay before coming within a lick of Old Trafford crossbar paint of drawing with Manchester United as a Conference side in last year's FA Cup, it seems for the time being, at least, Crawley Town remain resolutely unloved.

Theirs is an interesting yarn. Within an hour of going out of existence in 2006, they were saved by a last-minute rescue package and, with the help of shadowy uber-investors, went onwards and upwards to win promotion to the Football League last season in the wake of a spending spree that earned them the sobriquet "the Manchester City of non-league football" for a trolley-dash in which they sourced over 20 players, many for eye-wateringly non-non-league sums. In came recently departed goal machine Matt Tubbs for £70,000 and Argentinian pretty boy Sergio Torres for £100,000. The arrival of Richard Brodie from York City for an undisclosed fee subsequently disclosed as £275,000 set a Conference transfer record, although homesickness means he has temporarily returned north on loan.

"It doesn't bother me one iota," says the Crawley manager Steve Evans, upon being asked if sour grapes about Crawley's big spending irritates him. "People will always have a dislike of somebody else who's doing well. Besides, if you'd done your facts and figures you'd have realised the money thing is perception rather than reality. We've bought one player in the last 18 months, Tyrone Barnett for £150,000, and we've sold one that we got for nothing in the summer for £170,000. That's been our transfer dealings. So it's perception.

"Why are we probably not everyone's favourite underdogs? Probably because of the finance that our FA Cup run generated, but that won't come into it on Sunday; I don't care if nobody wants us to win as long as we win."

Evans is a spiky Glaswegian who is unlikely to win any popularity contests, boasting a managerial past more chequered than a chessboard. Spared prison after being found guilty of a £323,000 tax fraud in a scam that involved disguising player wages and bonuses as expenses over five years while manager of Boston United, he served a lengthy suspension from football and returned with an indelible black mark against his name. Welcomed back by the club, if not by supporters who were embarrassed by the manner in which Boston had cheated their way to Football League status, he rewarded his employers by pledging his future to the club days after relegation back to the Conference, only to leave three weeks later when his head was turned by overtures from West Sussex.

Despite being softly spoken, earnest and occasionally jocular at Friday's press briefing, Evans remains a notoriously unapologetic technical area wind-up merchant and his often poor behaviour in the face of officialdom, rival managers and players has earned him more than his fair share of expulsions and touchline bans. Even in victory against Championship side Hull City in the fourth round of the Cup, he couldn't resist an ungracious snipe at his otherwise magnanimous and complimentary opposite number Nick Barmby, who had been irritated by vocal lobbying of the referee from the Crawley dug-out to have one of his players sent off.

So, occasionally churlish in victory as well as defeat, but Evans insists he has mellowed in recent years.

"I've had to because of myself," he explains. "And I've had to to get people like Claude Davis in, who's played in the Premier League. There's a way that those boys like to be approached and encouraged. There's young Sanchez Watt from Arsenal and that was a real pivotal signing for us. In the past, Arsenal wouldn't have considered putting their players down to League Two level but Arsène Wenger likes the way we play and has encouraged players to join us."

A cynic may argue the young loanee left Arsenal for Crawley because he would have a better chance of winning trophies at an ambitious club that are going places and there is a steely confidence about Evans that suggests, come Sunday lunchtime, Stoke City may get carved up. "I don't know if it's expectation, or is it hope … or is it wishful thinking?" he says with a laugh. "If Stoke come and beat us three or four nil there won't be many eyebrows raised. But I also don't think there would be too many eyebrows raised if it was 1-0 to Crawley. That's the expectation Crawley's players have created over the last 18 months."

And the main difference between his players and those of their Premier League visitors? After a long pause, Evans rolls his eyes heavenwards, shakes his head and hazards a guess: "About £50,000 a week?"